Friday 26th August Overnights
BBC One
20:30- A Question of Sport: 2.75m (12.1%)
21:00- My Family: 3.74m (16.7%)
21:30- Miranda: 3.65m (16.5%)

BBC Two
20:30- Gardeners' World: 1.92m (8.4%)
21:00- India on Four Wheels: 2.09m (9.4%)
22:00- The Rob Brydon Show: 1.56m (7.9%).

ITV1
20:00- Dickinson's Real Deal: 2.54m (11.5%)
21:00- Fraud Squad: 3.6m (16%) , +1: 207k

Channel 4
20:00- Come Dine with Me: 1.24m (5.5%) , +1: 279k
21:00- 8 Out of 10 Cats: 1.06m (4.7%) , +1: 305k
21:30- Chris Moyles' Quiz Night: 886k (4.2%) , +1: 251k

Channel 5
21:00- Celebrity Big Brother: 2.82m (12.6%)
* peak: 3.21m (14.4%)
22:00- The Bachelor: 1.26m (10.1%)
23:00- Celebrity Big Brother's Bit On The Side: 813k (7.5%)

Primetime Shares
ITV1: 21.3% (+1: 0.6%)
BBC One: 19.8%
BBC Two: 6.9%
Channel 5: 6.5%
Channel 4: 4.4% (+1: 0.9%)

Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary

Source: DS

Agreed or merge the two

That share is too high, surely?

Actually, Cohen's comments about sitcoms were very revealing - that he used to get many times more scripts to read at BBC Three than he has done since moving to BBC One. It's like comedy producers these days are actively looking to avoid the mainstream and seek out a niche home. Mainstream comedy has such a stigma. Hopefully a couple of relatively broad successes like Miranda and Mrs Brown's Boys are going to start to change that. A series of pilots is a good idea and has to increase the chances of finding something good.

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On last nights numbers, decent if unspectacular for Big Brother on C5. The show has settled down now at a level the channel will be more than satisfied with. It's not really a national conversation, but then it didn't really need to be - it only had to attract the hardcore who stuck with it through thick and thin on C4. And it's done that so far. Normal BB will obviously be a new test.

Channel 4 are the ones taking a hit with 8 out of 10 Cats and Chris Moyles both very low.

Those two shows' ratings are remarkably consistent every week. Even an extra 1 to 1.5m watching ITV1 in the 9pm hour last night has made no real difference to those ratings.

I've brought out the Ratings Thread cool, wet towel. We're going to need it to mop Brekkie's brow when he spots this.

Strong night for Ch5 again. Decent for the first eviction. Even though it was down on last Friday, BBOTS managed to increase and did well considering it only had a 1.3m lead in. Surprised The Bachelor was steady on last week, but Ch5 will be relieved. Ch4 is really struggling against CBB though. Yeah, it was losing money for Ch4, but it's now denting everything else, whilst at the same time bringing in great figures for Ch5.

ITV will be pleased at that rating for Fraud Squad which is above most entertainment offerings this year. Still doesn't feel like Friday night material though.

Quite a boring night last night.

Excellent retention for The Bachelor. Good start for Fraud Squad.

By the way Paul, CBB was not "down a million viewers" week-on-week. The drop was 400k.

I think CBB did pretty well last night. Some people were expecting 3m+ but the show hasn't hit those kind of numbers in recent series at this time of the year. Yesterday's % was in line with the % that the previous two CBBs had for their first evictions, so it was a very solid figure. As you say though, normal BB will be the big test.


It's interesting seeing which factual shows have worked on ITV1 this year:

- Walton Sextuplets: c5.5m
- Long Lost Family: 4.5-5.0m
- Strangeways: c5.5m
- Smugglers: highest rated factual on Tuesdays
- Fraud Squad: highest rated factual on Fridays

One thing they all have in common is there's not really any celebrities in sight unlike shows which bombed such as Caroline Quentin's travelogue and Home is Whether the Heart Is. And secondly, those last 3 shows are all male-skewing shows (compared to most other factual shows on the channel) and all three of them are made by the same production company Wild Pictures. Maybe they'll get the hint, they should do more of those kind of shows in the future, rather than showing stuff with 'celebrities' in it which more often than not hasn't done well for them recently. Also, I'm quite surprised they haven't recommissioned Strangeways, which could've been a returning factual strand for them.

No wonder the IOC aren't rushing to ink the deal for 2014/16 (though having seen the ads in C4's athletics, let's hope they do soon!). Any other channel in any other country wouldn't think twice about sidelining everything bar the news for coverage of the Olympics - and we're not just talking home Olympics here, but no, not the BBC.

Loved the Dont Scare the Hare related comment:

"People didn't engage with the robot in the way we hoped"

Pre-school children may have engaged with it, but probably not many others.

Though have to say Saturday teatime 5.30 is a very tough slot these days and what chance Epic Win may have had presumably will be given a sparse funeral there.

A few interesting snippets from Jeff Ford, Channel 5 controller, in session at the MediaGuardian TV Festival 2011:


http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcas...live-blog.html

Shame that the last line there looks incomplete, was really keen to read what he had to say about that.

Also:

I wouldn't be so sure. Before looking at international channels, even here in the UK if the Olympics were on ITV, they'd still find a way to air Corrie and Emmerdale. I'd imagine Eastenders will switch to BBC2 and pick up extra viewers on the BBC3 repeat, in fact I'd bet quite a lot on BBC2 becoming BBC1 for the duration.

When Athletics starts the events are scheduled from 7:00 - I suspect BBC2 is the more likely option.

Soap fans on this forum are going to be torn - on the one hand they won't be able to complain about the Olympics taking over completely, leaving them with no EE - on the other they might be a little upset when its ratings slump massively.

I'm glad they axed Big Brother. I thought it was a good decision creatively and I look forward to seeing what new dramas come out of the budget.

Big Brother has found a new home on Channel 5 which will help boost the channel's fortunes, but Channel 4 is free to be more creative now... so I see it as a good situation for viewers. Those that miss Big Brother can watch it on Channel 5, those who were tired of Big Brother filling up the Channel 4 schedule over summer can now look forward to new shows emerging on 4.

Bit unfair on pre-school children, there, Chris. They have standards, you know.

And as a robot, the Hare was a bit rubbish. If they had a celebrity edition of Robot Wars between the Hare and Dusty Bin from 3-2-1, Dusty Bin would win. And he was made 33 years ago when all technology was rubbish.

what they should have done was "Dont Scare the Dalek" and obviously done it with kids.

The EastEnders scheduling over the Olympics will be interesting to see - normal slots on BBC Two maybe? I can't see BBC One being given any extra programming other than the original news during that period.

Back to the ratings: My Family and Miranda are remarkably consistent - neither saw a dip despite stronger opposition from ITV1 and an eviction show on Channel 5. A Question of Sport performed reasonably opposite Coronation Street.

Fraud Squad would do better on Monday nights IMO, but then most things would. It certainly held up the 9pm much better than recent fare has. OK for Dickinson's real Deal against EastEnders.

India on Four Wheels is certainly proving to be a hit for BBC2 pulling in another good figure against the two strongest shows of the night. Rob Brydon did ok from 10pm and Gardener's World seems to benefit from the lack of gardening opposition which it had at the start of its run.

A good performance from Celebrity Big Brother but I thought it may have touched the 3m mark considering it was an eviction show. The Bachelor improved its audience on week 1, with the channel will be pleased about, and Bit on the Side also pulled in a decent figure considering the time of night and nature of the show.

Channel 4 are really struggling without Big Brother propping it up. The comedies, which had been performing reasonably well, are starting to limp along with the new opposition. Come Dine With Me seems to be being used as ratings 'pulling' filler now.

I agree it was the right decision for Channel 4 at the time. But I'd kind of expected them to have made some progress creatively by now. The one new drama they did have Sirens, was a bit of a flop in the ratings.

I agree; they may as well have given Big Brother another year and try and boost new programming off it. As it is, they seem to be clueless.

I thought Sirens was really disappointing, any news on if it's coming back? And I agree, I expected there to be a bit more progress creatively... hopefully by this time next year there will be new hits emerging for them.

No, the original interview was quite clear, but it has been altered to create a story. rzt's post neatly summarizes the whole thing.

So Fraud Squad took down Celebrity Big Brother last night! Who would have thought that would happen. Fraud isn't exactly a very visually exciting thing. Maybe there are loads of accountants channel surfing on Friday nights?